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Inside the industry supplying millions of mutant mice

MORE animals were used in lab research in Britain last year than there are people living in Los Angeles. UK government figures show that 4 million animals were used, a 9 per cent increase on 2011. Most of these – 3.3 million – were rodents. Some 2200 primates were used, mainly to test drug safety.

The majority of the rodents were mice, 1.77 million of which were “knockouts”&colon; animals with a specific gene turned off. A lucrative industry has sprung up to supply them. Phil Simmons of Sage Labs, St Louis, Missouri, a commercial supplier, estimates that the industry’s worldwide turnover is &dollar;50 million a year.

By 2016, each of the mouse’s 20,000 genes will have been turned off, if work by the International Knockout Mouse Consortium goes to plan. It has received &dollar;150 million in funding from the US National Institutes of Health and the European Union.